Three eggs in a sock

It was Easter 1952. I was 14 and my brother Charles was 6. He was in the first grade. Daddy and Mama had long gone to bed. When it was time for us to go to bed, Charles said, “Jewell, I forgot, but I’m supposed to take three colored boiled eggs to school in the morning.”

I didn’t know what to do. We were very poor, and I knew we didn’t have any egg dye or food coloring.

Then I remembered that I had a pair of red socks. I put the eggs inside the red socks and put them into a pot of water to boil. When they were done, I took them out and they were a pretty pink color.

Then Charles started to cry. “I don’t want to take those eggs to school!” I asked why, and he said, “Because I might get them and I don’t want them because you cooked them in your socks!”

“No,” I told him. “The teacher will hide them for the whole class. Somebody else will find your eggs, and you will find someone else’s.”

The next morning, Charles had his little brown sack with his three pink eggs inside. That evening, Charles came home from school with a smile on his face. “Look, Jewell, at all the eggs I found.” I peeked inside the little brown sack and there was not one pink egg in there.